babble
LOK, LZ, KM / 2022-23
From RMIT
With Thanks Anna Jankovic, Vivian Mitsogianni, John Doyle
Programme Lecture Series
Babble was an independent student-led lecture series that invited two guest speakers to discuss the same topic. The speaker's briefs were as follows.
The series was co-founded by Loughlin O’Kane, Laura Zammit and Kevin Ma.
Guest speakers included: Kerstin Thompson (KTA), Mark Jacques (OPENWORK), Simon Robinson (OFFICE), Sarah Lynn Rees (JCBA), Ross Harding (Finding Infinity) and Millie Cattlin (These Are The Projects We Do Together).
From RMIT
With Thanks Anna Jankovic, Vivian Mitsogianni, John Doyle
Programme Lecture Series
Babble was an independent student-led lecture series that invited two guest speakers to discuss the same topic. The speaker's briefs were as follows.
The series was co-founded by Loughlin O’Kane, Laura Zammit and Kevin Ma.
Guest speakers included: Kerstin Thompson (KTA), Mark Jacques (OPENWORK), Simon Robinson (OFFICE), Sarah Lynn Rees (JCBA), Ross Harding (Finding Infinity) and Millie Cattlin (These Are The Projects We Do Together).
The speaker breifs were as follows:
SITE: All disciplines have blind spots and preferences. We see that there is a particular blind spot in how site is seen, taught and translated in projects. The question we are asking is - How do we shape the project or the way we work so that we can have a better understanding of site?
Not just pragmatically, but our attitudes to ecology, history, narrative and the relationship to land and country. We are particularly interested in the design process, modes of research, and revelations as a way of critiquing the status quo. Reimagining how we might act and make decisions in the interest of site.
NEXT?:We acknowledge that this question is loaded with the need to understand where we are and that it is easier to describe things in hindsight. But we still want to ask - where should we go, what’s next?
Embedded in this question is also the acknowledgement of the audience of students who as the next generation of practitioners are fertile ground for change, this lecture also acts as an opportunity to provide broad scope, talk through projects that have been successful or that might set up a framework for change - speaking to the broader cultural moment.
Hope and desires, and a somewhat dire love for the built environment, will all be discussed.
VALUE: We are inspired by the argument that the built environment site both valuable and embodying values.
However, the financialization of the property market, its continued privatization, and the increasing ownership disparity in Australia prove to undermine the value of our built environment, while equally describing the values of our society. Concurrently we see the architect’s value within modern society challenged, former Prime Ministers call us ‘fruitcakes’ and a recent Premier says we have ‘no idea’. The question we are asking is: What is our value? Our values? And what is valuable?
